The present invention relates generally to warp knitted fabrics and, more specifically, to a warp knitted fabric of an improved hand. In the brassiere industry, the brassiere cup has gone from being made by cutting planar fabrics, for example, into a plurality of appropriate pieces which are sewn together to form a three dimensional bra cup to molded cups. Although providing shape retention and support after wearing and washing, the cotton sewn bra cups have an undesirable ridge or seam line.
Earlier attempts to produce molded bra cups typically involved molding nylon fabrics. Because of the temperature limitations, later developments included woven polyester fabrics. Problems in molding a uniform bra cup using woven polyester were encountered and it was suggested to use knitted rather than woven polyester fabrics. Initially, multi-filament polyester yarns were used followed by mono-filament yarns. Although mono-filament yarns provided a more stable fabric, they were coarse or had a rough hand.
To solve the problems of the prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 3,981,310 to Donaghy proposes a unique warp knit construction using continuous filament polyester yarns. Although this structure is an improvement over prior art, fabrics capable of being molded and retaining their shape and support after a plurality of washing and wearing there is still a desire to produce a moldable fabric to be used in a bra cup and other intimate articles of clothing which has a hand closer to that of natural fibers such as cotton.
The use of texturized or spun-staple polyester fibers to improve the hand is well-known. The problem of warp knitting on small gauge machines, for example, 28 gauge tricot knitting machines, is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,442,099 to Auville et al. Because of the space limitation of the 28 gauge tricot knitting machine and physical size of texturized yarn, Auville et al suggests unique knitting construction of texturized continuous filament yarn having a denier less than 10 each per filament and the total denier of at least 150 by alternating between the first and second bar to form alternate courses. It has been suggested by Turner in U.S. Pat. No. 3,738,902 to prepare a warp knitted fabric containing a 150/34 texturized polyester filament in the face and 150/25/40 rayon filament in the back or 22/1 spun polyester in the face and 20/1 polyester-rayon spun fiber in the back. These particular size spun polyester yarns are not capable of being knitted on a 28 gauge tricot machine and, thus, a moldable fabric capable of producing a desired hand for use in intimate garments could not be produced.
Thus, there exists the need for a moldable polyester fabric having improved hand.